


Don't break me again, I am delicate

by mayfixlds



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Deserved Better, Endgame Fix-It, M/M, Sam Wilson Is A Good Friend, So I'm giving it to him, Steve go get your manz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21685621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayfixlds/pseuds/mayfixlds
Summary: The night before Tony's funeral, Steve tells Bucky he won't be coming back after he returns the infinity stones. Bucky tells Steve something he's been keeping inside since their days in Brooklyn.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 89





	Don't break me again, I am delicate

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song It’s You by Ali Gatie. 
> 
> because we all still salty about how endgame ended, huh?.

It was the night before the funeral when Bucky was finally able to get a moment alone with Steve. After the fight with Thanos was over, and it had been confirmed that half of the population had been blipped back into existence, Steve had taken it upon himself to speak with world leaders, SHIELD, and the U.S Government and fill them in with what had happened the last five years. They’d spoken a little since that final battle with Thanos, but there had been so much clean up and so much grief to deal with in the aftermath, they hadn’t had a chance to have a moment alone since. It also didn’t help matters that the rogue avengers, who had been dusted were still, technically considered, fugitives. That had been a fun 48 hours trying to fix with the pretty fragmented governments of the world.  
Bucky, feeling completely useless and not knowing what to do, had headed back to Wakanda. He wanted to see what had happened to his hut – and his goats – but was pleasantly surprised when one of the Wakandan farmers had welcomed him back with a smile and showed him back to his small house. It was dusty, and needed a deep clean, but it had been preserved and Bucky’s small collection of belongings hadn’t been moved.  
He’d spoken to Steve, briefly. A few times on the phone, a few times in person when he’d visited Wakanda to speak with T’Challa. These last five years had aged Steve, more than Bucky had ever seen before. There was a pain behind his eyes that Bucky couldn’t name. Sam had visited more, he also found readjusting to five years into the future hard.

  
It was a few days before Stark’s funeral that Sam had showed up, asking Bucky to come with him.

‘I can’t, Sam’ Bucky had said, shaking his head at him. ‘He’d be rolling in his grave if he knew I was there. I killed his parents’

Sam sighed ‘Stark knew you had no choice in that. He was pissed at Steve for not telling him more than anything”

“I don’t know, Sam. I wouldn’t be welcome there”

“Steve needs you. He needs us. He lost two of his friends that day. He needs as many as he can get”

Bucky sighs, agrees, and regrets it immediately.

It’s a calmer night when Steve pulls Bucky aside and asks if he has a moment to talk. They're all staying in a hotel near the Stark residence. A few of the other avengers are staying with Pepper, Morgan and Peter in the house, but she hadn’t extended that invitation to rest of them and it felt wrong to impose their presence any longer than necessary. Hell up until yesterday, Bucky wasn’t even planning on attending the ceremony. If it wasn’t for Sam reminding him that even though they’d had their differences, Steve had lost a friend when he’d lost tony, and that he could do with having his other friends around when they had to say their final goodbyes to him, Bucky would’ve long been asleep in his hut in Wakanda by now.

Except, here Bucky is. Upstate New York, pacing a hole in the floor in the hotel room carpet. It was going to be a long night and not for the first time, Bucky wished that alcohol still had an effect on him.

Steve knocks on Bucky’s door around 11pm and honestly, Bucky is happy that they’re finally getting a chance to talk. He'd died – again – and he was sick of it. He was sick of being taken away from Steve before he had the opportunity to properly see him. They'd spent pretty much every day together since they were eight years old, and it had always been Steve and Bucky against the world, but ever since Bucky was shipped off to war, he’d felt as though Steve wasn’t just his anymore. They'd come a very long way from those two kids in Brooklyn.  
Bucky missed Steve. He missed knowing another person better than he knew himself, he missed the easy-going conversation, that he’d only got to experience on the rare occasion since he’d gotten his memories back. He missed the time before Captain America.

“Hey Buck, you busy?” Steve asked, when Bucky had opened the door. he was wearing jeans and a grey Henley. He ran his hand through his hair, making it deshelled, but ultimately Steve looked relaxed. Bucky couldn’t remember the last time he saw Steve looking anything other than stressed and tense. This was the Steve he remembered. No armor. No uniform. Just Steve.

“Not at all, pal” Bucky said, opening the door wider and letting Steve in. He closed it gently behind them, following Steve inside the room. Steve took a seat in the armchair in the corner of the room. Bucky stood by the desk that the tv was on “Do you want a drink or anything?” he asked, breaking the silence.

‘I wanted to talk with you about these next few days” Steve started, running his hand through his hair again.

Bucky frowned “I told you, I really don’t mind coming with you. As long as Pepper was okay with it - I was okay wi”

Steve cut him off “I know Buck, and thank you, really. I'm glad that I'll get to have you there”

Bucky tried not to let the words warm him too much. Steve had meant for support. Just like how it would be having Sam there, too.

“I actually wanted to talk to you about after” Steve continued “Bruce and I have decided that we can use the machine tony created, so that I can return the stones back to their rightful place in time”

Bucky nodded; he’d remembered Bruce talking about how the stones needed to be put back sooner rather than later “Do you want me to come with you? We can get it done quicker if there’s two of us.”

Steve shock his head again “No, uh, the reason I’m bringing it up is because, well, I'm not planning on coming back”

Bucky froze for a second whilst his brain tried to catch up to what Steve had said

“What do you mean you’re _not coming back_?!” Bucky asked, his voice increased slightly.

Steve winced slightly at the volume.

“Is it dangerous? Do you not have enough of the equipment to get through it safely?! I’m sure if you tell Bruce he’ll be able to think of something. I’m sure Tony left some contingency plan to help if this became a problem”

Bucky was staring at Steve, he was frantically looking for answers, for a way to fix what Steve had said because otherwise he’d have to deal with the reality of them being separated again and Bucky reckoned he wasn’t strong enough to be the one doing the losing this time.

“No Buck, it’s all as Tony planned” Steve paused for a second, looking Bucky in the eye, as if he was willing him to understand “I’m choosing to not come back. I’ll return the stones and then I’m going to stay”

“Stay where?!” Bucky exploded “what on earth could possibly be there which is so important that you don’t want to – _oh_ "

 _oh._  
Peggy.  
Right.

Bucky knew he’d hit the jackpot when Steve was silent. When he looked everywhere but at Bucky.

“I saw her” Steve said quietly, after a minute of silence. “In the 70’s. When Tony and I went back to get some of the Pym Particles and the Tesseract” He paused “She was still so beautiful, Buck. Still running the show the way she does”

Bucky is reminded of a Peggy in a bar in London, dressed in a red dress with eyes only for Steve.

“I didn’t just miss my chance; it was taken from me. I don’t belong here, in this time, now. I’m tired, Buck. I just want to go home”

Bucky couldn’t find the words to reply to any of that. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Steve he felt the same. That he was lost in this time, that he’d become even more lost waking up again five years later to a much more broken world. That the only reason he hadn’t gone insane yet was because of Steve, because to him, Steve was his home. And as long as he had Steve, he didn’t need Brooklyn or the 1940s. He just needed Steve.

But he couldn’t say any of that. So, he was silent.

Steve signed “I just wanted you to know” he stood up from his seat and headed to the door “Before. Before I didn’t come back”

Somehow those words reanimated Bucky’s voice.

“Don’t go” Bucky spoke up, just as Steve reached out for the door handle.

“Buck - what?” Steve spun around, a frown on his face as he looked back at him

“Don’t go. Stay. Here, now. With your friends, with your team. With _me_ ”

“Buck, I've lost so much of my team, and I'm done. I’m done with this whole superhero gig; I’ve lost more than I even want to think about and I'm done with it. I want to go find that life that Tony was always telling me to get”

“And why can’t you get that here?! Why does it have to be with Peggy? She had her life, Steve. She had her husband and her children. Are you really going to waltz in there and mess that up?! And how are you going to explain it anyway. Hi I’m Steve, I'm sort of your Steve, but also he’s still frozen in the Atlantic somewhere. Also, I made out with your niece once in the future, but hey darlin’ let’s get married”

Steve turned red

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything” he spat out “Besides, Bruce and Tony said it – changing the past doesn’t change the future. It won’t affect what’s happened. It creates another timeline. It doesn’t affect anything else”

“It will affect us, though, Steve” Bucky’s voice was quieter this time “It will affect me. Who will be here. Alone. Without you”

Steve was silent for a second “Buck I-”

“I always wanted to tell you; you know?” Bucky started, looking at the wall behind Steve’s head” But it was illegal for so long. And then you rescued me in Azzano and I thought maybe I could tell you then. Maybe if you’d been willing to risk your life to save me, maybe you wouldn’t be that mad, maybe I was worth something. But then we got back, and I met Peggy and I knew that I didn’t stand a chance. Then I died. And you died and then the universe kept playing it’s constant game of keeping us apart”

Bucky took in a deep breath. Steve was silent.

“I don’t know Steve, I just thought now that we’re both here, safe, and alive, and together, for once. Maybe that coulda’ meant something” he shook his head “What am I even talking about? Forget it, you go Steve, just go”

“Buck -”

“No, Steve, I need to think, I need some time, just please leave”

Steve took one step toward Bucky, as if he were going to say something else. But then he paused, shook his head, then left the room, closing the door loudly behind him.

They didn’t have time to talk during the funeral. Nor after.

It’s only when, a few days later, that Sam pulls him to what is left of the compound to the Quantum platform, so they can see Steve off.

  
“Remember, you gotta return the stones to the exact moment you got up or you’re gonna open up a bunch of nasty alternative realities” Bruce warns Steve, setting up the machine.  
  
Steve nods “Don’t worry, Bruce. Clip all the branches” He shuts the case with a sigh.

“You know I tried?” Bruce says, his voice softer this time “When I had the gauntlet, the stones, I really tried to bring her back” he pauses for a second and Bucky feels like he shouldn’t be listening in on the conversation “I miss her, man”

“Me too” Steve says, his face solemn.

Steve starts to make his way to the platform, Sam innocently following behind, not knowing that this will be the last time he’ll see his friend.

“You know if you want, I could come with you?” Sam offers

“Thank you, Sam” Steve declines, just like Bucky knew he would “This ones on me, though”

He turns to Bucky. Sam stops, trailing behind Steve now.

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back” Steve says. Bucky wishes he hadn’t.

“How can I?” Bucky replied, thinking of a time where the same words were shared between them. Back during a time where Bucky was sure they’d get to see each other again “You’re taking all the stupid with you” Steve pulled him in for a hug, but Bucky only let it last for a few seconds. he couldn’t stand this any longer than he needed too

“I’m gonna miss you buddy” he let out, showing one final sign of weakness

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck” Steve reassures

How can it be okay? Bucky thought. How can it be okay when I’m losing the best thing I've ever had in my life? how can it be okay when my heart is breaking into a million pieces? How can it be okay when I'm never going to see you again?

Of course, Bucky says none of these things. He'd said all he needed to say that night in the hotel. He stands there. Smiles. And watches as Steve boards the platform and disappears right before his eyes. That one last promise to meet them back here on his lips.

“And returning in five, four, three…” Bruce starts the countdown and Bucky turns away, not wanting to see the platform remain bare any minute second longer

Bruce hits one and just like Bucky expected, there is no sound of Steve returning.

“Where is he?!” Sam asks,

Bruce starts to reply “I don’t know he-“ before the machine starts to light up again. Making a noise, as if something was trying to engage with it.

Bruce stopped mid-sentence, looking down at his screen before smiling. Before he can speak again, the machine makes one last final noise before Steve lands, unbroken shield on his back and a little unsteady, right in the middle of it.

Sam and Bruce let out a sigh of relief. Bucky is silent.

“You took your time, Cap” Sam says, smiling at Steve.

Steve smiles back, before turning his gaze to Bucky. There’s something in his eyes that he can’t read, something that he hasn’t seen there before. Steve drops the now empty briefcase to the ground, steps of the platform and all but sprints over to where Bucky is stood. Before Bucky can get a word out, Steve takes his hands in his own and looks directly at him.

“Hey, Buck” he says quietly, a smile pulling at his lips.

“Steve – what are you doing here? I thought – Peggy”

Steve smiles again, a proper one this time “You were right, Buck. She’s had her life. With her husband and children and not with me. And, even if she hadn’t, the other night made me sure that that wasn’t something I’d want anyway”

Bucky is silent.

“I made a promise once” Steve said, his hand moving to Bucky’s chin, pulling it upwards, so their eyes meet. “To be with you till’ the end of the line, and I intend to keep that for a very, _very_ , long time. It’s a pretty long line, after all”

And he looks at Bucky, for any sign of hesitation, of rejection. But of course, there is none, and no one has ever been able to read Bucky the way Steve has.

Just for clarity though, Bucky nods his head, leaning his chin up toward Steve’s face, to be met halfway by the press of Steve’s lips on his. Bucky melts into the kiss, his hands reaching up into Steve’s hair as Steve’s come to rest on the lower part of Bucky’s back. They kiss for what feels like forever, not caring that they’re in the midst of all the rubble, or with an audience. Bucky finds it poetic in a way, something being born in the midst of all that was destroyed.

It’s only when Steve makes a small noise, that Sam takes it upon himself to cough – loudly – and put a stop to this.

“Look” he shouts “I’m glad you two finally pulled your head out of the sand, but there’s just some things we don’t gotta see man”

But he’s smiling. They all are.

Steve pulls away, his eyes sparkling as he looks down at Bucky. He gives him one last quick peck, before turning around to Sam.

“I’ve got something for you too, Pal” Steve shouts back, causing Sam’s eyebrows to raise.

“If you’re gonna kiss me, we need to have a serious discussion about our friendship Steve, because I think Terminator over there isn’t going to be too happy” Sam smirks, gesturing at Bucky who flips him off.

Steve laughs, a huge belly laugh with makes Bucky feel all warm.

“No, it’s nothing like that. Just, how do you feel about the red and blue?”

“Like, the colours?” Sam asks “Steve, you know I can pull anything off”

“Good” Steve says, reaching around to pull his shield off his back “I’ve got something you might like”


End file.
